Is there more to life than money?(Chinese ver.) - Paul Buchheit
13 12 2007[Remark:
A great post from Paul Buchheit which is very inspiring! Don't Miss it!
- Special Thanks to StephenH to help editing my translation! Thank you very much! -
最近一位好朋友，一位我十分尊敬的 journalist Leona 寫了一篇 "Nerds and Hippies" ，千萬不要錯過。喜歡機器和科技的我，對這些題目尤其喜愛。這也是為什麼我曾很熱衷和很享受籌備了 Hong Kong Web2.0 Startups Gathering 1 及 Hong Kong Web2.0 Startups Potluck Party 2 ，而且那兩次活動很幸運地認識了很多很有夢想和追求的人，那是最令我感到興奮!
最近看了 Paul Buchheit 寫的一篇文 : Is there's more to life than money? ，十分有共鳴。也許是因為他寫了自己的心聲、生活體驗及對工作理想的感覺，更道出那些Startup Founders 的想法及Web2.0 ，翻譯下來了，與大家分享。
P.S. 誰是 Paul Buchheit? : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Buchheit ]
Is there more to life than money? - Paul Buchheit? (Chinese version)
生命中除了金錢還有更重要的東西嗎？
(P.S. I put the English original text here, please always refer to the meaning from the original text. Thank you Paul for letting me translate it!)
Whenever there is a discussion about joining a startup vs working at regular job, someone will defend the boring 9-5 job by
saying, “there is more to life than money”.
每當在討論著應該加入“科技創業公司“(Startup)還是找一份朝九晚五的常規工作時，總有人會拒絕沉悶的9-5工作，他們的說法是，“生命中除了錢還有更重要的東西“。
These people are, of course, right. There is plenty of evidence that happiness is only loosely correlated with wealth. People seem to derive a much greater sense of satisfaction from good relationships, and having a sense of purpose and meaning in their life. Money matters too, but not as much once the basic need for food and shelter are addressed, and those aren’t big issues for most people deciding between joining a startup or a big company.
這些人當然是正確的，因為有足夠的證據指出，快樂與財富其實並非有著緊密的關係。人們似乎會因為良好的關係，及有目的和意義的生活，而得到更大的滿足感。金錢也是要緊的，但當食物和住屋這些基本需要解決了的時候，金錢是不會對決定加入一間“科技創業公司“(Startup)或是大企業構成重大問題的。
Furthermore, most people who do join startups will never experience a huge payday. Google distributed billions of dollars to thousands of employees, but that was truly exceptional. Even moderately successful startups that eventually sell for $50 million dollars or so will only make a couple of people rich.
此外，大多數加入“科技創業公司“(Startup)的人，是絕不會有獲發高薪的一天。雖然 Google 分派數十億美元給成千上萬的員工，但那其實只是一個例外。即使是比較成功的“科技創業公司“(Startup)最終售價為5000萬美元，那也只是小部分人的富裕。
If all you care about is money, I doubt that joining a startup is the right way to go. You’ll probably make a lot more at a hedge fund, or by becoming a lawyer, or something like that.
如果你關心的只有金錢，那麼我會認為你加入一間“科技創業公司“(Startup)是個錯誤的選擇。但如果你加入一家基金公司，或者成為一個律師，或類似的行業，你會極有可能賺得更多。
Maybe it now seems like I’m defending the boring 9-5 job, but it’s actually just the opposite. Those 8 hours/day are a huge chunk of of your waking life, and don’t forget that you’ll probably also spend a few hours preparing, commuting, and “unwinding”. Even worse, bad or boring jobs can sap our energy, so that at the end of the day all we feel like doing is sitting in front of the tv.
也許，現在看來我好像是在支持著沉悶的9-5工作，但實際上是剛剛相反的。這些每天八小時的工作，佔據了你生活中大部份的清醒時間，不要忘記，你大概也花了幾個小時去準備，乘車，及“放鬆心情” 。更壞的是，討厭和沈悶的工作會吸盡我們的能量，所以，在一天結束的時候，我們唯一想做的事情便是坐在電視機前一整晚。
That’s no way to live, if you can help it. Why surrender such a huge chunk of your life just to get some money? For some people, that’s the only option, but for those fortunate enough to be smart and educated, there’s a better way.
除非你想辦法避免，否則你跟本無法生活。為什麼你為了只是得到一些錢，而放棄整個人生呢？對於一些人來說，這是唯一的選擇，但是對於那些聰明而且受過教育的幸運者，那必定有個更好的選擇。
Instead of throwing away your “working hours”, why not make every minute count? Why not find work that you can actually enjoy, work that’s fun and meaningful?
與其浪費你的“工作時間“? 為什麼不珍惜每一分一秒？為什麼不去找一份你真正可以享受，而且有趣和有意義的工作?
Of course that’s easier said than done, but it’s not impossible.
當然，這說來容易做卻難，但是這並非是不可能的。
For reasons that will have to be left for another post, the structure and systems in big companies tend to make work meaningless and life unpleasant, at least for me. Of course smaller companies can be awful too, but they have a greater potential to be good.
大公司的結構和系統往往使工作變得沒有意義，也令生活變得不愉快(至少對我而言是對的，我會在另一篇文章內詳述)。當然，規模較小的公司也可能會一樣糟糕，但他們有更大的潛力去做得更好。
If your job isn’t working for you, if it isn’t making you happy and energized, then why are you still there? I can’t guarantee that you’ll find something better, but perhaps you should at least try something new. Don’t just give up on life.
如果你的工作並不適合你，如果它不能使你快樂和有朝氣的話，那為什麼你還留在那裡呢？我不能保證你一定會找到更好的，但也許你至少應該嘗試新的東西，不要放棄你的生命。
I truly enjoy writing code. I love creating new products and features. I like getting feedback from users and finding ways to solve their problems. I like the game of business. I like helping people. Of course there is always some amount of unpleasant work that must be done, but that can be contained (my rule is that work should be no more than 10% awful).
我是真的享受編寫程式，我也愛創造新產品和新的功能。我喜歡獲得用戶的意見，並設法解決他們的問題。我喜歡商業運作的模式，我也喜歡幫助別人。當然，始終會有些不可推卻的工作仍是會做得不很愉快，但那是可以接受的（我的原則是，工作中不愉快的部份不可以超過百分之十） 。
That’s why, even though I don’t financially need to work, I choose to work (and end up staying up until 4am pushing new code). It’s why we created FriendFeed, to have a great place to work, a place where we can build great products and have happy users. Of course I’d also like to earn a few billion dollars, and I plan to make all of our employees very wealthy, but that’s more like a bonus. I don’t believe that you can be happy and make great products and treat your users right if all you think about is money.
這也就是為什麼，儘管我在財政上並非需要工作，我仍然選擇要工作（並坐在案前編寫程式直到早上4點鐘） 。這也是為什麼我們創造了FriendFeed ，有一個很好的工作地點，一個我們可以建立極佳的產品和開心的使用者的地方。當然，我也同樣希望能夠賺取數十億美元，而我的計劃是要能夠讓我們所有的員工都非常富裕，就像發花紅一樣。但如果你所在意的只是金錢的話， 我並不相信你可以擁有真正的快樂，你不能製造出優秀的產品和善待你的用戶。
There’s more to life than money.
生命中確是有比金錢更重要的東西。
My first Google pay-stub (including note from Heather). Money isn’t everything, but this zero-dollar check did make me a little nervous.
我的第一張 Google 支薪存根（包括 Heather 的紙條） 。金錢並非一切，但這張零美元支票確實令我有點緊張。
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